Coronavirus news

[Steven W Bohler]

So, if I am hearing correctly, the suggested reasons for NYC accounting for 40% of the deaths although it only accounts for less than 3% of the USA population are:

1. Population density.
2. Greater usage of mass transit.
3. Earlier infections.
4. Large numbers of foreign-born residents, many of whom have been in the USA less than 20 years.

Other suggestions?

[Dan Fienen]

I seem to remember reading or hearing that DNA analysis suggests that the primary entrance of Covid-19 into NYC was from Europe, not China. At least that could mean that a comparison of how many flights from China to NY as opposed to CA has little to do with it. Also I think air travel from Europe was shut down later than from China. Might help explain some of the difference.


Perhaps the travel bans, along with other factors tors and mitigation efforts were to an extent effective.  We blocked the virus from the country from its originating point, China. Unfortunately it wasn't until too late that we realized that it had flanked our barrier enter through Europe.

[Charles Austin]

Pastor Bohler, What you don’t understand is that New Yorkers are used to adversity. They survive. They picked up some of the DNA from the cockroaches; New Yorkers and cockroaches will be the last living things on earth. Furthermore, they approach adversity with a cheerful spirit. You have to do that in New York or you would never survive subways, summer heat, noise, and the constant changes forced upon the city.
And you draw strength from the wonderful diversity of the city, its restaurants, its offbeat beauty (I would try to explain that but you would never understand),  its cultural and artistic richness. And the fact that you can always get a brief escape to the Jersey shore, in the Adirondacks or up on Cape Cod.

[D. Engebretson]

As we all struggle to adjust to the restrictions of this 'new normal,' and hear daily of sickness and death due to a pandemic we still do not entirely understand, we should not forget another economic crisis rising in our country.  Food banks, which provide basic food items to people and families in need, are straining under an incredible increased demand.

Queues up to six miles long have become common at these pop-up collection points as far afield as San Antonio, Las Vegas, and Cleveland, where thousands of recently furloughed and unemployed people wait hours for grocery boxes.


We are also experiencing shortages within the food supply chain as unique demands stress this sector, and industry is working hard to shift and adapt to different needs.  We hear about farmers dumping milk and we wonder why when it is rationed in some areas, but we also fail to understand what happens when distribution to one area is shut down and industry must change to provide it in a different area and in a different way.  (e.g. schools and restaurants no longer requiring milk, but grocery stores needing more.)'

Many of the most vulnerable are those who were already living, as they say, 'paycheck-to-paycheck.'

“It’s not surprising to see so many ‘new needy’, when even before the pandemic, millions of working Americans were already living on the edge of poverty, making tough choices between food and rent and bills every month,” said Ellen Vollinger, legal director at the Washington-based Food Research and Action Centre (Frac).

In 2019, about 40 million Americans received free meals or groceries through a network of 200 food banks and 60,000 pantries, schools, soup kitchens and shelters, according to Feeding America. The working poor, elderly and disabled and infirm accounted for the vast majority of recipients.

Even before the pandemic, half of American adults had either no emergency savings or not enough to cover three months of living expenses, according to Bankrate’s 2019 financial security index.

Part of the problem is that we have long been a credit society that spends more than it can sometimes safely sustain.

No savings and staggering debts: in 2019 Americans owed $14tn including $1.3tn in car loans, $1tn on credit cards, $1.48tn in student loans and $9.4tn to mortgage lenders.

In Las Vegas, drivers of luxury vehicles queued for food boxes. “When you see a Lexus in line at 4am prepared to wait six hours, you know there’s real need,” said Larry Scott from Nevada’s Three Square food bank.

Those who are particularly at risk in this unprecedented shut-down are those in the hospitality industry.  People who just last month could have paid their bills and put food on their tables without effort, are now lining up in unimaginable lines waiting for basic food items they can no longer afford.

Last week in San Antonio, Texas, an unprecedented 10,000 people showed up in their cars for a pop-up distribution centre – a drive-thru service which typically attracted 400 before the layoffs. That day, 25 semi-trucks of food were handed out, much of it to newly laid off hospitality staff whose last paycheck was already gone, according to Eric Cooper, president of the food bank.

All this reminds me that my quarantine restrictions are relatively minor when my ability to buy food and other necessities remains intact.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/17/us-food-banks-over-budget-demand-coronavirus

[Steven W Bohler]

As we all struggle to adjust to the restrictions of this 'new normal,' and hear daily of sickness and death due to a pandemic we still do not entirely understand, we should not forget another economic crisis rising in our country.  Food banks, which provide basic food items to people and families in need, are straining under an incredible increased demand.

Queues up to six miles long have become common at these pop-up collection points as far afield as San Antonio, Las Vegas, and Cleveland, where thousands of recently furloughed and unemployed people wait hours for grocery boxes.


We are also experiencing shortages within the food supply chain as unique demands stress this sector, and industry is working hard to shift and adapt to different needs.  We hear about farmers dumping milk and we wonder why when it is rationed in some areas, but we also fail to understand what happens when distribution to one area is shut down and industry must change to provide it in a different area and in a different way.  (e.g. schools and restaurants no longer requiring milk, but grocery stores needing more.)'

Many of the most vulnerable are those who were already living, as they say, 'paycheck-to-paycheck.'

“It’s not surprising to see so many ‘new needy’, when even before the pandemic, millions of working Americans were already living on the edge of poverty, making tough choices between food and rent and bills every month,” said Ellen Vollinger, legal director at the Washington-based Food Research and Action Centre (Frac).

In 2019, about 40 million Americans received free meals or groceries through a network of 200 food banks and 60,000 pantries, schools, soup kitchens and shelters, according to Feeding America. The working poor, elderly and disabled and infirm accounted for the vast majority of recipients.

Even before the pandemic, half of American adults had either no emergency savings or not enough to cover three months of living expenses, according to Bankrate’s 2019 financial security index.

Part of the problem is that we have long been a credit society that spends more than it can sometimes safely sustain.

No savings and staggering debts: in 2019 Americans owed $14tn including $1.3tn in car loans, $1tn on credit cards, $1.48tn in student loans and $9.4tn to mortgage lenders.

In Las Vegas, drivers of luxury vehicles queued for food boxes. “When you see a Lexus in line at 4am prepared to wait six hours, you know there’s real need,” said Larry Scott from Nevada’s Three Square food bank.

Those who are particularly at risk in this unprecedented shut-down are those in the hospitality industry.  People who just last month could have paid their bills and put food on their tables without effort, are now lining up in unimaginable lines waiting for basic food items they can no longer afford.

Last week in San Antonio, Texas, an unprecedented 10,000 people showed up in their cars for a pop-up distribution centre – a drive-thru service which typically attracted 400 before the layoffs. That day, 25 semi-trucks of food were handed out, much of it to newly laid off hospitality staff whose last paycheck was already gone, according to Eric Cooper, president of the food bank.

All this reminds me that my quarantine restrictions are relatively minor when my ability to buy food and other necessities remains intact.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/17/us-food-banks-over-budget-demand-coronavirus

Which is why a number of folks have been saying for quite some time that the "cure" may well be worse than the disease: more will suffer, even die, from the shut-down of huge swaths of the economy than from COVID 19.

[Eileen Smith]

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm

Why would NYC account for about 40% of all US COVID 19 deaths, according to the CDC (Table 5)?  Is there something unique about the population, the geography, climate, preparedness, something else?  Or is it just a coincidence?  I mean the entire state of California (with a population much greater than that of NYC or even the metro NYC area) has only 452 deaths -- less than 1/10 that of NYC alone.  Is the warmer climate of California helping them with the virus?  Did California do something NYC did not?  Or is it all just chance (if a Christian can be allowed such an expression)?

I think it's a valid question.  IIRC, San Francisco has pretty much the same number of direct flights from Wuhan, China per month as New York.   You'd think the numbers would be similar.

One explanation is the spread of the disease via mass transit before the full lockdown. New Yorkers use subways far more than residents of any other city, and the virus probably came to New York sooner due to international air traffic. So that city got hit first, before much was known, and the virus also spread the fastest there.

And then there's the mayor of NYC in restaurants filmed throughout the city insisting was well and encouraging people to go out to eat.   

[Dan Fienen]

It also gives the lie to the complaint voiced by some that eagerness to reopen the country and reopen the economy simply values dollars over lives. The human cost of the shutdown needs to be reckoned with.

[Matt Staneck]

Let's dispel with the notion that this is an urban problem:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/04/15/coronavirus-rural-america-covid-19-186031

For the love of neighbor, protect your people and don't presume to be safe because you live in an area without immigrants or public transportation. Rural communities are also vulnerable to this disease and if restrictions are lifted too quickly it can let loose *in its own devastating way* in more rural communities (I say more because devastation is already happening in some).

M. Staneck

[D. Engebretson]

The economic issues are also spawning, or exacerbating, another danger: suicide.

Economic hardship breeds suicide, which can also be a contagion.


With these massive new stressors we are already seeing large protests in places like Michigan, and I hear of one planned in my own state.  But some will not protest.  The will simply give up in despair.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/we-need-to-worry-about-suicide-contagion-too/

[Charles Austin]

‘Humans”, Pastor Fienen, can survive quite a lot of things. So let’s compare the  “human cost” in terms of people dying with the  “human cost” of shutdowns, unemployment, inconveniences or shortages of dollars.
Those latter things we can fix or survive; the former, not so much.
We first heard “the human cost of the shut down” from those who were minimizing the impact of the virus, and we are still hearing it from that sector.
Go ahead. Reckon with human cost.

[John_Hannah]

I fail to understand the logic of protesting the "shutdown." Covid-19 is highly contagious and had it not been restrained, there would have been a "natural" economic shutdown since few would be able to go to work.

There is no question that the current situation is devastating. The alternate scenario would be no better and could have been worse health wise and economically.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!  Peace, JOHN

[peter_speckhard]

Pastor Bohler, What you don’t understand is that New Yorkers are used to adversity. They survive. They picked up some of the DNA from the cockroaches; New Yorkers and cockroaches will be the last living things on earth. Furthermore, they approach adversity with a cheerful spirit. You have to do that in New York or you would never survive subways, summer heat, noise, and the constant changes forced upon the city.
And you draw strength from the wonderful diversity of the city, its restaurants, its offbeat beauty (I would try to explain that but you would never understand),  its cultural and artistic richness. And the fact that you can always get a brief escape to the Jersey shore, in the Adirondacks or up on Cape Cod.

Another ironic post of the day-- describing New Yorkers' tenacity, stubborn will to survive, and ability to overcome adversity as though people in the Northern Plains just couldn't understand such attributes. Yes, New York is a great city. You may as well have the residents of the Capital explain to the miners in Sector 12 that people in the Capital are used to adversity. (Sorry, watched Hunger Games with the family during this shutdown.)

[Steven W Bohler]

I fail to understand the logic of protesting the "shutdown." Covid-19 is highly contagious and had it not been restrained, there would have been a "natural" economic shutdown since few would be able to go to work.

There is no question that the current situation is devastating. The alternate scenario would be no better and could have been worse health wise and economically.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!  Peace, JOHN

Because the shutdown does not seem to have been all that effective in areas like NYC.  And in other areas, like here in Polk County Minnesota, we have a total of two confirmed cases.  But we have many/most of the same restrictions here as in places like NYC.  The logic of the protests is that it makes no sense to treat gravely infected metro NYC and hardly infected rural Polk County the same way.  And to do so risks an economic collapse that will harm -- even kill -- more than the virus itself.

[peter_speckhard]

I fail to understand the logic of protesting the "shutdown." Covid-19 is highly contagious and had it not been restrained, there would have been a "natural" economic shutdown since few would be able to go to work.

There is no question that the current situation is devastating. The alternate scenario would be no better and could have been worse health wise and economically.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!  Peace, JOHN

I understand the logic of it entirely. The ongoing shutdown is based on presumed knowledge of what would have happened when events have been demonstrating repeatedly that what was presumed about this virus by models has been drastically wrong. Not just by a little, but by a lot. There is a limit to how many factors of ten the models can be wrong by before people start to lose faith in the models and cease being willing to lose their livelihoods permanently because of them.

What motive do you ascribe to those who are arguing for a earlier easing of restrictions? Are they simply callous toward the deaths of others? Too obsessed withe money to worry about other people dying? Simply stupid?

Consider a small dairy farmer in Wisconsin. They've been dumping all their milk for weeks. The massive corporate dairy farms have the capital to survive. The family farmer does not. I get there are two sides to the argument, but to claim not to understand the protests of the shutdowns seems to me to be an incredibly callous position.   

[peter_speckhard]

The Mill, by E.A. Robinson, presented here to show what family dairy farmers, small business owners, people whose life savings have been in invested in a bar or restaurant or other such enterprise, are facing due to this shutdown, which is being imposed on them despite their living in areas where basic social distancing measures need not interrupt daily life that much, and where the medical capacity to treat potentially severe cases of the virus is adequate to the task. In the poem, time and technology have rendered the couple's livelihood and way of life obsolete. Today, by order of the governor, such couples are expected to inflict this obsolescence on themselves deliberately. And people wonder that there is push back and protest?

The Mill

The miller's wife had waited long,
The tea was cold, the fire was dead;
And there might yet be nothing wrong
In how he went and what he said:
"There are no millers any more,"
Was all that she had heard him say;
And he had lingered at the door
So long that it seemed yesterday.

Sick with a fear that had no form
She knew that she was there at last;
And in the mill there was a warm
And mealy fragrance of the past.
What else there was would only seem
To say again what he had meant;
And what was hanging from a beam
Would not have heeded where she went.

And if she thought it followed her,
She may have reasoned in the dark
That one way of the few there were
Would hide her and would leave no mark:
Black water, smooth above the weir
Like starry velvet in the night,
Though ruffled once, would soon appear
The same as ever to the sight.